infinitive verbs that end with ír

Question

Hola,

I thought that infinitive form in Spanish end with ar, er and ir until I met the verb sonreír. Of course this is something new for me. I have some questions about that:

Are these verbs conjugated like ir verbs?

Are there other verbs that have the same ending?

Are there verbs that end with ár or ér?

Muchas Gracias y Saludos

Answer 1

Verbs ending with "ír" are the same as "ir" verbs. The reason the tilde's there is because the ending of the infinitive verb is stressed in Spanish. That is, the "ir," "ar," or "er" of a verb must be clear and not muddled with a diphthong (but diphthongs don't necessarily mean a muddying of the ending sound). As such, the accent mark makes it a clear /re?'ir/ instead of /re?ir/, which could make it more difficult to understand as an -ir verb.

Broken down further, the "i" is a weak vowel, so any vowel preceding it would cause a diphthong to occur (if there's no tilde denoting stress), and because of posterior position in the diphthong, the "ir" sound would not be clear (unless the preceding vowel were a "u," but I don't believe that a pronounced "u" occurs before the "ir" ending of Spanish verbs). This would not occur with -ar or -er verbs because the weak vowels "u" or "i" would change their own sound, but the sound of the strong "a" or "e" would be preserved, which would produce a clear indication of how the verb ends. Therefore, there are no verbs that end with "ár" or "ér."

The verb "sonreír" is conjugated like an -ir verb in that the endings are the same (there's no new conjugation table for "ír" verbs), but it changes stem from "e" to "i," and it retains stress on the "i."

sonrío | sonreímos sonríes | sonreís sonríe | sonríen

Our dictionary gives "oír," "reír," "freír," and "sofreír" as verbs end like "sonreír."

I hope this clears some things up!

Answer 2

delete-already answered

All Spanish verbs verbs are divided into the 3 conjugations AR, ER or IR.

Sonreír (or reír and all verb like it...freír, desleír, etc.) are 3rd conjugation, IR verbs. The have the same endings as other IR verbs. What is different about them are the accent marks necessary to break the ei diphthong (taking the stress from the strong vowel E and putting it on the weak vowel I) so that they act like other IR verbs as much as possible.

Are there vverbs that end in ár or ér?

There may be some borrowed from other languages. It would be odd if Spanish would have any since the stress rules put the accent on the last syllable of a verb infinitive ending in the consonant R, and since the A or E is a strong vowel and would be stressed even when forming a diphthong. There would be no need to have an accent mark on the A or the E. (verbs that end in iar or uar for example...enviar or graduar, ier or uer...)